As ‘Zombie Fires’ smolders, Canada prepares for a new season full of flames

Canada’s emergency preparedness minister is warning that this year’s wildfire season will be worse than the record-breaking season of 2023, when thousands of fires burned tens of millions of hectares and sent huge plumes of smoke that enveloped major U.S. cities, including New York and New York. Washington.

This year’s fires could be especially intense in two of the country’s most fire-prone provinces, where nearly 150 of the fires that started during last year’s season are still burning this winter, under snow-covered ground.

Although so-called “zombie fires,” a term recently popularized in Canadian media, are an annual phenomenon in parts of the country, never before have so many fires been reported in a single winter, raising fears that many of them will flare up again . above ground.

The ‘zombie fires’ persist in winter because porous ground cover of peat and moss in northern areas acts as underground fuel for these fires.

The risk of wildfires in Canada has increased due to climate change, increasing the hot, dry and windy conditions that have caused droughts, according to research published last summer by World Weather Attribution, a group of scientists who model how climate change can cause extreme weather influences. .

Given drought conditions in parts of Western Canada and other extreme weather impacts, Harjit Sajjan, Canada’s emergency preparedness minister, said it was not surprising that the wildfire forecast was “alarming.”

He added that climate change “is the reality we face and we must prepare for it.”

Many of the underground fires — burning in the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta — do not pose an increased risk of causing spring wildfires because they are so charred in places that there is no vegetation left to burn.

But others are in areas where drought has turned into tinderboxes, raising fears that fires will break out above ground once spring arrives.

Last year’s wildfires burned about 48 million hectares of forest across Canada, an area about the size of Finland, and a staggering 170 percent increase from the previous year, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

Smoke from the fires, especially those burning in Quebec, drifted as far south as Florida, blanketing several cities in the United States and southern Canada with a noxious cloud.

Now entering its third year, the drought in Western Canada is a major factor behind fears of an even worse fire season in 2024, especially in British Columbia and Alberta.

Both provinces have already seen new above-ground wildfires this year, prompting Alberta to declare the start of wildfire season about a week before the traditional start date of March 1.

Snow could still fall in the spring and tame existing fires and help with dry conditions, said Mike Flannigan, a professor of wildfire science at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia.

But this year, he added, long-term forecasts indicate continued drought and warmer-than-normal temperatures.

About 93 fires left over from last year have continued to burn underground throughout the winter in British Columbia, while 55 are burning in Alberta, according to their provincial governments.

Such winter fires are common in both provinces, as well as in Yukon, but in British Columbia there are usually no more than about 15, experts said, adding that the much higher number this year has left them surprised and concerned.

“There is no historical analogy to what we see now,” Professor Flannigan said. “Most years they’re not that bad. But now many of these fires have the potential that when the snow melts and it becomes warm, dry and windy, they could start growing again. So it is a serious problem.”

No winter fires have been recorded in the forests of Quebec, the eastern province that sent smoke to the United States and at one point across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. Quebec generally lacks the peat and moss soils of the western provinces that serve as fuel for winter fires.

Because winter fires occur underground and may produce little or no visible smoke, detecting them can be challenging. The wildfire agency for British Columbia said it relied on sensors on planes and satellites to search for heat, although snow cover reduces its effectiveness.

Still, some fires have been visible to the naked eye.

“Even on days of -40 to -42 degrees Celsius we still saw smoke,” says Sonja ER Leverkus, chief fire brigade at Northern Fire Worx, a private wildfire suppression service in a remote part of northeastern British Columbia. “So bad that you could smell the smoke and cough in your truck while driving.”

In a normal year, melting snow seeps into the ground, where winter fires burn and most of them are extinguished. But this year there has been much less snow than usual, says Dr. Leverkus, who has a PhD in fire ecology.

“I’m 6 feet tall, and there have been times in recent years when the snow on my apple orchard was well above my hips,” she said, adding that there was less than a foot on the ground.

Mr. Sajjan, the minister of emergency preparedness, said Canada was better prepared this year to fight fires and evacuate communities. While provinces and territories are responsible for fighting fires, federal money has provided training for another 600 firefighters across the country.

A system meant to allow provinces to share staff and equipment has been revamped to make it more efficient and speed up the exchange of information, Mr Sajjan said.

Equipment stocks have been increased, he added, and new techniques and technologies – including nighttime firefighting – are being introduced or tested.

While the forecast for this year’s bushfire season appears bleak, Professor Flannigan stressed it was still just a prediction.

“I don’t expect to see another year like 2023 in my lifetime, but I could be wrong,” he said.

Still, he added that the long-term prospects for Canada were discouraging.

“Pretty much every year is going to be a bad fire year,” Professor Flannigan said. “But on average we will see a lot more fire and a lot more smoke. This trend will continue.”

In Fort Nelson, British Columbia, Dr. Leverkus, with a crew of more than 100 at the height of fire season, said they were still haunted by the eight firefighter deaths in Canada last year. Two of them occurred in areas near where her crews worked.

“Last year was terrible,” she says. “My crew and I are listening to what the land is telling us. And the land tells us it’s dry, and the animals tell us it’s dry and to be ready.”

Vjosa Isai research contributed.